This is the blog of the online CRBR, a forum for people who work on Belgian refugees during WW1 (UK, FR, NL...) and for people who want to share their personal history.

Monday, 16 May 2016

Beyond Flanders Fields: The Great War in Belgium and the Netherlands (QMUL, 4, 5 June) - updated

Queen Mary University of London and University College London will host
another conference in 2016 to further explore aspects of the First World
War: Beyond Flanders Fields. Belgian refugees will take centre stage :-)When? 4-5 June 2016Where? Queen Mary London, Arts Two Lecture Theatre

Saturday 4th June 2016

10.30: John Williams. The Flames of Louvain: A Tale of Total War and Destruction of European High Culture in Belgium by German Occupying Forces in August 1914.

11.00: Tessa Lobbes. ‘Those, whom we used to call our beloved Flemish friends, are becoming our German enemies’: The confrontation between Dutch intellectuals, Flemish activism and the German Flamenpolitik during the First World War.

11.30: Break

12.00: Sebastian Bischoff. Furies, spies and fallen women: Gender in the German public discourse about Belgium, 1914-1918.

12.00: Geneviève Warland. Post-war plans for Belgium? German academics dealing with the First World War and its Aftermath.

1.00: Lunch

2.30: Keynote speaker: Sophie De Schaepdrijver. “A Less-than Total Total War”: Neutrality, Invasion, and the Stakes of War, 1914-1918.

3.30: Break

4.00: Christophe Declercq. Emerging from a forgotten past: Belgian refugees in Britain during the First World War. (see below)

4.30: Rolf ter Sluis. De ‘Keizer-quaestie’. The ‘Kaiser Issue’. The Former German Emperor in the Netherlands. November 1918 - March 1920.

4.00: Karen Shelby. The Guard on the IJzer: The Memory of the Belgian Front.

4.30: Workshop and Drinks

Supported byThe School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary LondonCenTraS, University College LondonBelgian Embassy LondonFlanders House LondonPalgrave MacMillan Emerging from a forgotten past: Belgian refugees in Britain during the First World WarDuring In the first half of September 2015, parallels were drawn in the national newspapers and social media between the massive numbers of refugees from the Middle East and the scale of the refugee crisis in 1914, the Belgian refugees who came to Britain during the First World War, in particular.The history of the Belgians in Britain is a complicated one, not least because it has apparently been overlooked for so long. Indeed, forgetfulness might very well be the true legacy of the passing of about a quarter of a million of Belgians through wartime Britain. The history of the Belgians in Britain was also characterised by the fact that it was a transnational history in a cross-cultural setting. The themes of language and class constitute a refrain running throughout this history, as did the arguments in support of the idea that the Belgians in Britain had already disappeared from view during the war at the same time as constructing a unique identity in exile.This paper provides a holistic view of that history and its main cultural representations, such as the Belgian exile newspapers published in Britain, charity gift books and publications by Belgians living in Britain.